Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Wish For The Past ❯ Pink Resolution ( Chapter 24 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Disclaimer: *wearing a black body suit and ski-mask* *makes off with DBZ and all its characters* DBZ is mine now! Hahaha!! And now I own all the characters! Bardock, Gohan, Trunks... *drool*

Trunks: *gasps in alarm* Hey! Since when did Bardock move to the top of the list?!

Brenda: *sweatdrops* Since I decided I liked his spiky hair! And his muscles. And the fact that he runs around in a towel or in underwear for various chapters in my story. *grins and drools*

Gohan: It's not fair! We're not allowed to be in this fic! How can we compete with him?

Brenda: *sniffs indignantly* You can't. That's what's so great about him. But, hey, if it's any consolation to you, Gohan, you might be in the next story. Dunno about you, though, Trunks. The next story will take place in the regular timeline, and you abandoned us and live in the Mirai timeline now, so you might not show at all. *sniffles*

Trunks: But you're the author! You can make anything happen!

Brenda: True.... I'll have to think about it. *smiles happily and starts daydreaming up ways to get Mirai Trunks in the next story* But it will only happen if I can make it feasible.

(A/N: No, I was not serious when I said I stole DBZ and the characters. I own neither, so don't sue me!)

Even after a shower had removed the jello and much of the stress of the morning's events, Bardock was still angry with the chibis. That probably had to do with the fact that his hair and tail remained with their new pink streaks despite everything he tried. Without being able to read the labels on the bottles in the bathroom, he didn't dare use any of the liquids for fear that they might do something even worse. He'd have to ask Trunks or Goten what each one was. After they finished cleaning up the room.

Lacking any clean clothing to wear at the moment, he settled for wrapping a towel around his waist, then headed for the control room. He smirked. It was time to see if he could convert that image file into hard copies.

He suddenly stopped in his tracks, realizing what he was doing. I'm as bad as the kids are! he noted in surprise. They play a joke on me, I get revenge, they get revenge for my revenge.... this could go on forever. Frowning in thought, he opened the door to the control room. You're the only adult here, Bardock, he told himself firmly. What kind of an example are you setting, anyway? These kids look up to you, so maybe you should act a little more mature than you have been lately. He sat down in front of a console and stared at the blank screen for several long moments before finally reaching into his pocket and pulling out the capsule that held Radditz's scouter. Smiling faintly, he decapsulized it and began the process of copying the memory from the scouter to the ship's system.

Not for revenge, he mused wistfully. For... remembrance. After they're gone, this may be the only thing I have left to remember Trunks and Goten by. He stared off into space as the computer read and copied the scouter's memory, his anger completely forgotten. "How many more friends and loved ones will I lose before I die?" he asked sadly. Silence was his only answer.

When Radditz had finished cleaning up, he joined his father in the control room. Noting the fact that Bardock looked depressed, the teenager sat down next to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "What's wrong, father?" he asked with concern.

"Nothing," Bardock replied, shaking his head sadly. "I was just thinking about your mother. And about my team mates. I know I shouldn't dwell on the past, but sometimes I just can't help it." Voice filling with the pain of loss, the warrior stared at some distant point that only he could see. "I dreamed about her last night," he said suddenly. "Dreamed that your mother came back to me. I haven't felt so happy since she died. Then I woke up and realized it was only a dream." He turned his head in an attempt to hide his pain from his son. Tears were forming in his eyes, a fact that made him angry with himself. Warriors were not supposed to cry, especially not in front of others.

Being only a teenager, and one who had not spent a large amount of time with his father, Radditz was at a loss as to what to do in this situation. He missed Sereri, too, but he knew that it was nothing compared to what his father had gone through the day that she had died. He sat in silence, unable to offer the kind of comfort that Bardock needed right now, but unwilling to abandon him, either.

After a few moments like this, Bardock sighed and hit a few buttons on the console, bringing up an image on the computer screen. "This is what I wanted to show you," he said affectionately, seeming to have put aside the grief he had been feeling only moments ago. Radditz glanced at the screen and grinned as he recognized the scene from yesterday morning, Trunks sucking on Goten's tail while Goten and Vegeta hugged in their sleep. "I was going to use it to 'get even' with them, but I think maybe we should just forgive them once their punishment is over. Besides, if they knew that I had a video of them like this, they'd do everything they could to destroy it, and I think I want to keep this after their gone."

A moment of uncomfortable silence ensued as Radditz squirmed in his seat. "But... they dyed our hair and tails pink!"

"I know," Bardock smiled faintly. "But do you really want to spend the rest of the trip trying to get back at them for things they do to us? Because that's what will happen if we keep up this cycle of pranks and revenge."

"........ good point." Radditz did not want to think about what else might happen to him if he was the victim of anymore pranks.

"Truunks, I'm hungry!" Goten sniffled as he washed the last of the lime jello from his grandfather's pants. He wasn't exactly the best clothes washer there was, but he figured that soap and hot water in the tub was enough to make it wearable. Draining the tub, he rinsed the garment out and hung it on the towel rack to dry. "Do you think grandpa will let us eat yet?"

"Probably not," Trunks answered glumly. "We've only been in here about three hours, so that means we have another two hours to wait." He had just finished mopping up the last traces of whipped cream from the floor, trying to ignore the loud noises his stomach was making. He briefly considered eating it, but quickly discarded the idea. After all, it had been sitting in Radditz's hair. Surveying the room, he noted with a little pride that it looked as good as it had before their midnight escapade. Maybe better. All remnants of toothpaste, glitter, whipped cream, sprinkles and jello had vanished, courtesy of the three chibis' ministrations.

"But I'm sooo hungry," the youngest chibi complained with a hand on his stomach, moving aside as Vegeta took his place at the bath rub, scrubbing Radditz's armor clean.

"We all are, you baka," the prince grumbled. "Complaining about it won't help, so why don't you shut up?" The words were said without any real heat behind them. Despite the fact that he was hungry, he wasn't taking his temper out on his new friends, much to their surprise. They were, after all, used to the perpetually angry Saiya-jin no Ouji of the future who was displeased with almost everything and not afraid to let everyone know it.

"Do you think apologizing would do any good?" Goten asked hopefully. "Maybe if we said we were sorry then grandpa would let us eat."

"It'd be a good start," an amused voice said from the doorway. Trunks and Goten looked up to find Bardock's pink-and-black head poking into the room, followed shortly by the rest of him. "But I'm still going to hold firm on your punishment. No food until lunch time. What you three did was wrong, and you need to learn the consequences of your actions." A snort and barely heard mutter of 'Saiya-jin no Ouji' came from the bathroom where Vegeta was still cleaning Radditz's armor. Bardock ignored him and went on. "What I came in here for was to ask if either of you knew if there's any black or brown dye on this ship." He lifted an eyebrow questioningly as both chibis glanced at each other, then guiltily studied the floor.

"Umm... we could only find pink," Goten mumbled, his tail curling around his leg in an unconscious act of guilt. They're hiding something, Bardock thought. Something they don't want me to find out.

"By the way, how long does it take for this stuff to wash out?" he asked suspiciously. When both boys gulped and seemed to shrink visibly beneath his gaze, he nodded to himself. They had been hiding something from him.

"It... it doesn't wash out, Bardock-san," Trunks muttered, barely loud enough to hear. "It's permanent." Both chibis looked up at him with a mix of shame and fear, half expecting him to be infuriated. To their surprise, the only emotion showing on Bardock's face was resign. And maybe a flicker of embarrassment as he thought about going the rest of his days with pink streaks in his hair and on his tail.

"There's nothing that can be done about it now," he explained, seeing their confusion at his lack of a reaction. "Getting angry with you won't do any good. I suppose," he added, chuckling slightly, "that I should be grateful you didn't destroy my pants instead of filling them with jello. I'm not exactly keen on the idea of going to Earth in nothing by my underwear." The image that brought to mind brought smiles to the faces of the two kids. "Speaking of which, are they clean yet?"

"Hai, but they're still wet."

"I see," Bardock sighed. Looking around the room, he noticed that it had been restored to order and he smiled again. "You boys did a good job on cleaning up." He was about to turn around and leave when Trunks stopped him.

"Bardock-san, wait!" Bardock looked back over his shoulder at the lavender haired boy. "When we were cleaning, I found a shirt my dad used to wear," Trunks said, scuffing the floor with one foot in embarrassment. "I thought maybe you'd like to wear it, since you don't have a shirt." He ran over to the closet and pulled out a large, pale pink button-up shirt with the word BADMAN written on the back which he held out to Bardock. Vegeta, hearing his Mirai self being talked about, poked his head out of the bathroom to see this shirt his counterpart supposedly wore.

"Nande kuso?! I would never wear a pink shirt!" he fumed. "How dare you accuse me, even an alternate me, of wearing an abomination such as that!"

"Yeah, dad doesn't like it either," Trunks laughed. "Which is probably why it was in this ship in the first place. Mom thinks he looks cute in it, so she's always trying to get him to wear it. I guess he thought the inside of a capsule space ship was the best place to hide it."

The image of a grown-up Vegeta wearing a pink BADMAN shirt was just too funny. Bardock chuckled and took the shirt from Trunks. "Well, I don't exactly have anything else to wear, and since it'll go great with my new hair, I'll wear it for now," he joked, slipping the thing on, though leaving it unbuttoned. "Now if only your dad had left some pants, as well."

"Hee hee, even if he did, you couldn't wear them," Goten giggled. "Vegeta-san is too short."

"You mean I'm still short when I grow up?!" Vegeta was horrified. It was bad enough to be short when you were young. To be a short Saiya-jin no Ouji when he was older would be even worse! "Shimatta...."

The rest of the week went by fairly quickly. Goten, Trunks, and sometimes Bardock taught Radditz and Vegeta how to sense and suppress ki. Because there was no training room, though, they weren't able to do much serious training. Not unless they wanted to run the risk of blowing a hole in the side of the ship. Radditz, unlike his father, had been furious when he had found out that the pink dye in his hair was permanent, enough so that Bardock had to physically restrain the teenager from attacking the three chibis. He'd calmed down only when Bardock had reasoned that they would probably be able to find some hair dye to remedy the problem once they landed on Earth, since that was, after all, the planet that had created the pink dye that had caused all this trouble in the first place.

Now they all gathered in the control room, staring in awe at the beauty of a blue, green, and white orb that hung in the vast expanse of space like a precious jewel. They were finally there. Earth. A world that had given birth to two of the five on board that ship. A world where, in another time, one of the five had died, and another now lived with his family. A world where a remarkable boy had lost all memory of his race and had been raised by a kindly old martial artist by the name of Son Gohan. In less than an hour they would land on this planet known as Chikyuu, and begin a new adventure.